South Africa — aviation overview

Airports, airlines, and popular routes for South Africa (ZA).

South Africa has 19 airports operating 298 routes in our weekly dataset, with 10 airlines on record connecting to 8+ countries.

Quick facts

Airports
19
Scheduled routes
298
Top airlines
10
Outbound countries
8+
Most-competitive route
CPT → JNB · 7 carriers

Top airports in South Africa

# Airport IATA Routes  
1 Johannesburg JNB 144 routes Departures →
2 Cape Town CPT 66 routes Departures →
3 Durban DUR 24 routes Departures →
4 George GRJ 9 routes Departures →
5 Nelspruit MQP 9 routes Departures →
6 Port Elizabeth PLZ 9 routes Departures →
7 Bloemfontein BFN 7 routes Departures →
8 East London ELS 6 routes Departures →
9 Hoedspruit HDS 6 routes Departures →
10 Lanseria HLA 4 routes Departures →

Top airlines based in South Africa

# Airline IATA Routes  
1 Airlink 4Z 93 routes Network →
2 Safair FA 45 routes Network →
3 CemAir 5Z 39 routes Network →
4 South African Airways SA 21 routes Network →
5 LIFT GE 6 routes Network →
6 FlexFlight W2 6 routes Network →
7 Ethiopian Airlines ET 5 routes Network →
8 Eswatini Air RN 5 routes Network →
9 Turkish Airlines TK 5 routes Network →
10 Fastjet Zimbabwe FN 4 routes Network →

Most-competitive routes from South Africa

Most-served international destinations

Where South Africa flies to

Frequently asked questions

How many airports are in South Africa?

South Africa has 19 airports in our dataset.

How many non-stop routes originate in South Africa?

South Africa has 298 routes departing from its airports in our weekly dataset.

Which airlines operate most routes from South Africa?

Top operators by route count: Airlink, Safair, CemAir, South African Airways, LIFT.

Which is the busiest airport in South Africa?

By scheduled-route count, Johannesburg (JNB) is the busiest airport in South Africa with 144 routes departing.

What is the most-connected international destination from South Africa?

Harare (HRE), Zimbabwe sees the most competition with 7 carriers serving it from South Africa.

Which countries do South Africa-based airlines fly to most?

Top outbound countries: Zimbabwe (20 routes), Mozambique (12 routes), Botswana (11 routes), Zambia (9 routes), United Republic of Tanzania (7 routes).

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Frequently asked questions

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Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.